Frost! A drop spreader's best friend.

Woke up this morning to find a fine, frozen mist on the LipsYard lawn.


Time to slip into the waterproof garden shoes...

and hoist the Drop Spread off the wall and get the pre-emergent on.


Checking the bag, as higlighted in last Green Thursday's LipsYard Blog, there were two Scotts spreaders listed with different settings numbers for each. Our spreader didn't have any name markings on it, so I made the executive decision to choose 7.0.


Changing the number changes the size of the holes in the bottom of the spreader, which determines how much material drops through to the ground.

Here's the spreader loaded for bear.

You can see the lines in the LipsYard lawn from the spreader wheels, making in easy to see where you've been to avoid missing spots. These turn up in a couple of weeks a lot yellower than the rest, causing much embarassment.

Hopefully, missing e-mails in the US Attorneys scandal will serve the same purpose as guides for Congressional investigators, showing the path that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales/Karl Rove/Harriet Miers took in the firings.

Friday the 13th

Are you a Paraskevidekatriaphobic? That's the fancy pants word for fear of Friday the 13th.

The sixth day of the week and the number 13 both have foreboding reputations said to date from ancient times, and their inevitable conjunction from one to three times a year portends great misfortune. It may be the most widespread superstition in the United States, affecting nearly 21 million people. Some won't go to work on Friday the 13th; some won't eat in restaurants; many wouldn't think of setting a wedding on the date.

One theory has the fear going back to ancient times, when the Egyptians' 13th phase of life was 'death.' They celebrated the move to the afterlife, but not so much the Christians, who made the number 13 unlucky. (There were 13 at the Last Supper.)

Another story takes the man vs. woman battle to the heavens, where there are 13 lunar (or menstrual) cycles in a year (female,) as opposed to the solar calendar of 12 months in a year (male.) Men, naturally, wanting to be the boss, made 13 an unlucky number.

There is a Viking tale about a Valhalla dinner feast gone wrong when the evil Loki crashed the party, making 13 guests.

A witches coven has 13 members.

Then what's so wrong with Friday? Christendom has it that Eve tempted Adam with the forbidden fruit on a Friday. The Great Flood began on a Friday; God tongue-tied the builders of the Tower of Babel on a Friday; the Temple of Solomon was destroyed on a Friday; and, of course, Friday was the day of the week on which Christ was crucified.

The Brits, attempting to dispel the superstition among seamen that setting sail on Fridays was unlucky, commissioned a ship named "H.M.S. Friday." They laid her keel on a Friday, launched her on a Friday, selected her crew on a Friday and hired a man named Jim Friday to be her captain. To top it off, H.M.S. Friday embarked on her maiden voyage on a Friday, and was never seen or heard from again!

So how did Friday and the 13th together become the worst of all? Nobody really knows. There is nothing in literature prior to 1800 that even mentions the convergence. Some scholars are now convinced the stigma is a thoroughly modern phenomenon overblown by 20th-century media hype. Great, one more thing for the neo-con talkers and Fox News to blame on the "mainstream media."

Perpetuating the superstition more than anything are the series of movies of the same name.

Here's the scariest thing for me on this Friday the 13th:

Green Thursday: Phosphorus = 0

Advertising their new phosphorus free lawn fertilizer has paid off for Stein Garden and Gifts, at least in the LipsYard. We're going to give their new line of Milorganite based turf products a try this season. First up is the Crabgrass Preventer. (Full Disclosure: Stein does advertise on my radio station. We paid full retail for the product and did not ask for me to talk about it.) A lot of times we feel helpless in fighting for green issues, but this is a great way to Think Globaly - Act Locally.

The guy at the store told us that it's a new regulation that phosphorus not be put on lawns more than 5 years old. New lawns still need the chemical for root development, but once established, it doesn't. I'm also told that our soil is naturally high in phosphorus to begin with, so it's really not needed at all.

Damage from phosphorus happens when runoff from lawns goes directly into a city's storm sewer system, which typically empty directly into streams, rivers or lakes. This over-stimulates algea growth, which throws off the natural balance of things, resulting in lower fish populations and dirtier water.

How can you tell if there's any phosphorus in your fertilizer? Check the second number on the package formula. 15—0—10, for example, means zero phosphate. These are always listed in this order.

Every Green Thursday, LipsYard will deal with an issue vital to our global environment.

Snow joke

Snowy Daffodils (Narcissus) in our LipsYard neighbor's garden on April 11, 2007.

The record for the heaviest April snowfall in Milwaukee is 14 inches, set on April 16, 1921. Other big April white-outs include 8 inches April 23, 1910; 11.6 inches April 9, 1973; 10.2 inches April 2, 1975; 8.6 inches April 5, 1982, and 6.6 inches April 7, 2000. The spring snow everyone remembers is May 10, 1990, when over 3 inches of snow fell.

No doubt the conservative voices around us, especially the on-air neo-con water-carriers (and aren't they really tired yet?) will say "Snow in April, there's no global warming!" Then make a joke about 'liberal wing-nut scientists.' Unfortunately, these claims play upon the public's ignorance of the difference between weather and climate.

weath·er [weth-er]
the current state of the atmosphere with respect to wind, temperature, cloudiness, moisture, pressure, etc.

cli·mate [klahy-mit]
the composite or generally prevailing weather conditions of a region, as temperature, air pressure, humidity, precipitation, sunshine, cloudiness, and winds, throughout the year, averaged over a series of years.

Even Newt Gingrich has abandoned the Bush administration's long-standing policy of claiming that global warming was just "bad science." In a debate with John Kerry, presidential wanna-be Gingrich called for a "Green Conservatism" that relies on free-market incentives to business as an alternative to government regulation.

Enjoy the April snow, no need to shovel, it'll melt in a day.

I've been to outer space, how about you?

Ever 'googled' yourself? I did, and found out that my name was on a microchip with a million other earthlings that went into space and returned. It was project Stardust, the first NASA mission to return particles from beyond the Earth Moon orbit. Our brave little spacecraft was launched on February 7, 1999 from Cape Canaveral. Weighing only 770 pound, it is the size of an average desk, except for the solar panels, which extend several feet in the front and back.

The plan was to fly by the Comet P/Wild 2 at a relatively slow 6 km/sec (about 6 times the speed of a rifle bullet,) and capture comet dust within a sticky substance called aerogel. January 2, 2004 the successful flyby of the 3 mile diameter comet took place.

Then the return capsule was jettisoned back to earth, where it landed in the Utah desert in the early morning hours of January 15, 2006. The rest of Stardust still roams outer space.

Back to my original discovery of names in space. It seems NASA wanted to put a human face on this project, and encouraged people to submit names to go on microchips. Not just my name is on the chip, but the whole LaBelle clan. I asked my parents if they put our names on it, and they said no. I'm going to assume it's my brother, who has a place in Florida, or his kids who visit, who put our family name into the cosmos on a trip to NASA. Also on the microchips are pictures of the project's creators and managers, like this one, where they pose with Buzz Lightyear. This is really going to improve our image with aliens.

In checking the other names on the list, there is a George Bush (minus the W,) but no Dick Cheney or Karl Rove. A lack of other notable politicos makes me think its not THE George Bush, so the 'taint' is off this project.

Here comes Peter Cottontail...

Easter is a tasty time for the candy industry. The 2006 season saw almost $1.9 billion in candy sales - second only to Halloween, which took in $2.1 billion. Each year, more than 90 million chocolate bunnies and 16 billion jelly beans (red is the favorite color) are made for the holiday. Each day, more than 5 million marshmallow eggs, bunnies and chicks are fluffed and dyed.

So how did the candied critters become a staple of one of the widest spread religious holidays in the world? Not so fast right-wingers! As easy as it might be to blame present day candy companies, Easter goodies can be traced back to the 1300s, when monks would pass out buns to the poor to eat on Good Friday. Though the icing-crossed bun was originally part of pagan culture, it was later reinterpreted as a cross to promote Christianity.

The Easter bunny also has pagan origins. The Hare and the Rabbit were the most fertile animals known and they served as symbols of the new life during the Spring season. The Easter bunny started in Germany, where it was first mentioned in writings in the 1500s. The first edible Easter bunnies were made in Germany during the early 1800s, made of pastry and sugar. When the Germans came to America, the Easter bunny came with them. His arrival was considered childhood's greatest pleasure next to a visit from Santa on Christmas Eve. The kids believed that if they were good, the Easter bunny would lay a nest of colored eggs (never mind that they don't lay eggs.) Boys would use their caps and girls their bonnets to make the nests in a secluded place in the home, the barn or the garden. These were the first Easter baskets.

Something new in the candy aisle this year are sugar-free Peeps and other better-for-you items, stemming from the issues with childhood obesity and diabetes. Candy sellers also have taken the hint that the Easter Bunny is no longer exclusively visiting children. Higher-end chocolatiers such as Russell Stover, Dove and Lindt are appealing to grown-up tastes with items like dark chocolate rabbits wrapped in elegant gold foil (my personal favorite.)

Green Thursday: Butt heads

We've all stepped over piles of them in parking lots, yesterday, a guy on I-43 flicked his out the window and hit my car. Kids on their way to high school toss theirs on my lawn. Could you all keep your butts to yourself, please?

This guy in Canada took things into his own hands, literally...




Globally, approximately 4.3 trillion cigarette butts are littered every year. Smokers in the USA account for over 250 billion cigarette butts. In most Western countries cigarette butts account for around 50% of all litter.

Almost 1 in 3 cigarette butts end up as litter

It can take up to 12 years for a cigarette butt to break down

I've seen them on beaches all around the world. Gross. Cigarette butts can leach chemicals such as cadmium, lead and arsenic into the marine environment within an hour of contact with water. Cigarette butts have been found in the stomachs of fish, whales, birds and other marine animals which leads to ingestion of hazardous chemicals and digestive blockages

Only smokers can stop cigarette butt litter.

Every Green Thursday, LipsYard will deal with an issue vital to our global environment.

The Cost of Divorce

The numbers are out on what Britney Spears will pay to Kevin Federline in their divorce settlement.

A 2004 pre-nup called for K-Fed to get $250,000 for each year of their marriage, but Spears upped that figure to $500,000 to speed up the negotiations.

He receives half the proceeds from their Malibu mansion, which is on the market for $13.5 million.

$25,000 a month in child support for each of the couple’s two children until they reach 18. (How can you SPEND that much on child support?)

He also gets custody of the boys four days a week.

Federline gets to keep all the gifts Spears bought them during their marriage.

He’s forbidden from writing a tell-all about their marriage.

Total cost: $13.5 million

Back in 1987 my divorce cost me:

A sofa

A sofa table

Dining room table and chairs

A TV and VCR

(Luckily her apartment building wouldn't allow waterbeds, or I'd have lost that, too.)

Total cost: $4,000 But unlike Brit, who'll just write a check, I didn't have that kind of money, so I made it up by doing two years worth of commercials and store appearances for the replacement stuff.

Life lesson learned: You make your mistake, you pay the price, you move on. Good luck kids.

Vote

Nothing as trivial as who will be our next president on today's ballot, just a couple of minor things, like the education of our future leaders, and the direction we're ready to let our State Supreme Court take. Get out and VOTE!

Opening Day, the beginning of mediocrity.

Another baseball season is upon us, let's hoist a $6.25 beer to some highly paid guys who at best will hit the ball 1 out of 3 times.

Let's shell out $8 for parking at a stadium that I'm still paying for (with no end to the sales tax in sight.)

Here's to the twenty new 50" flat-screen monitors in the concourses (did they buy them from the Muskego Schools?) so you don't miss a moment of "The Crew" striving to break .500 this year.

Go Brewers!

April Fools

In the 16th century, France celebrated the New Year just like we do today, except they partied on April 1st. In 1562, Pope Gregory changed the calendar to the one we use today and from then on, the New Year began on January 1st. Those who didn't know about the new calendar, or ignored it and kept celebrating on April 1st were called April fools and everyone played tricks on them.

In France today, April 1st is called Poisson d'Avril, which means April Fish. Children tape paper fish to their friends' backs and when the young "fool" finds out, the prankster yells "Poisson d'Avril!" In England, tricks can only be played in the morning. If a trick is played on you, you are a "noodle." In Scotland, you are called an "April gowk," which is another name for a cuckoo bird. In Portugal, April Fools' is celebrated on the Sunday and Monday before Lent. Pranksters usually throw flour at their friends. Nice.

Here's some traditional April Fool's Day jokes

Got Milk? If your milk comes in a cardboard container, add a few drops of food coloring. It's harmless.

For a fruity April Fool's practical joke, get a few gummy worms and carefully poke them into fresh fruit, particularly apples. Mom will love this.

April Showers: Put a rubber band around the kitchen sink spray nozzle handle when nobody's looking. Make sure the nozzle is pointing up and outward. The next person to use the sink will get a splash! Too funny!

Here piggy piggy. Let three pigs loose in a high school hallway. Funny enough, but first, paint the numbers 1, 2, and 4 on them. They'll be caught quickly enough, but imagine the time spent hunting down number 3.

I won't be playing any April Fools jokes this year, mine's in the White House.

Green Thursday: Cool Globes

In 1999 Chicago plunked hundreds of life-size cow sculptures on its sidewalks, just for fun. This summer (June - September) the Windy City will showcase 100 five-foot globes, but with a purpose—each illustrating a different way to reduce global warming. A huge knitted sweater will cover a sphere called "Turn Down the Thermostat." Autographed shoes from athletes like Magic Johnson will add 'soul' to a "Use Your Feet" globe. "I didn't want to focus on the doom and gloom," says Cool Globes founder Wendy Abrams. "I wanted to focus on solutions."

Just like the cows, the globes will be auctioned off. The money raised will be used to expand environmental programs and conservation clubs in the Chicago public schools.

It's part of the Clinton Global Initiative, (Yes, President Clinton,) who's goal is to increase the benefits and reduce the burdens of global interdependence; to make a world of more partners and fewer enemies; and to give more people the tools they need to build a better future.

Book a trip on the train to Chicago (unless funding gets cut again,) and check it out.

Every Green Thursday, LipsYard will deal with an issue vital to our global environment.

Rodent in the house!

Maybe I embellished that a little bit, it was actually a Muskrat (Ondatra zibethicus) in the garage. Here's how it happened. I pulled into the garage Friday night, and left the overhead door open (oops!) In the front of the garage, we had a bag nearly full of leaves and yard waste. Charmaine arrived home after me, and closed the overhead door. Next morning, when we left for the grocery store, I noticed that the bag had a hole torn in it, and some of the contents were spilled onto the floor. "Probably a mouse or chipmunk," I thought. I put the torn bag and contents into a new bag, and off we went. 45 minutes later, as we're unloading groceries, and leaving the door into the mudroom open, I notice that the 'double bagged' yard waste was now ripped open. "Bigger than a mouse," I surmised. That's when Charmaine noticed the foot-long beast with a foot-long skinny tail (that rules out a squirrel) huddled under the rototiller.

Unable to "frighten out" the poor critter, we moved to plan b, removing things from the garage so there would be no place to hide. Cars were backed out first, then the trash can and wheelbarrow. "We should call Mr. X (our neighbor)" "Yes!" we both screamed. Mr. X knows about everything, including critters.

In a flash he was in our garage, reaching for the muskrat with his bare hand. "Don't!" yelled Mrs. X, fearing a rabid bite or what not, so Mr. X grabs a broom and goes after it like he's on ice playing for the Stanley Cup. The poor thing waddled towards the door and was then whacked by Mr. X, slapshot style, down the sidewalk. Not being the brightest of beasts, or hell-bent on making a nest, she turned around and started towards the garage door again. I grabbed a snow shovel to block, Mr. X raised his broom, Charmaine closed the garage door. Under her car our Muskrat scampered, then prodded by the broom handle, took shelter under my car.

Time for some new players in our drama. Neighbors from down the street were walking their giant golden retriever. "A-ha!" I exclaimed, "the hunt is afoot." Sam, the dog, had other things on his mind, and took no interest what-so-ever in the rodent, not even giving us the satisfaction of a 'bark bark' or two.

To break this impasse, Charmaine backs her car out into the street, leaving the Muskrat stranded under my ride. Slowly I backed out, not wanting a squashed road-kill mess to clean up, slowly the creature backed up with me. Once in the street, Muskrat still under me, I accelerated away, with our new friend waddling down the curb, prodded by Mr. X's broom (he's unrelenting.)

Muskrat Susie, or Sam, took shelter under another neighbor's van, and so we headed back to our domicile, needing to replace all the contents now on the driveway. It was at this point I realized I should have grabbed my camera first, and captured the entire event for posterity, or at least You-Tube, but alas, all I can muster is the drawing above. Here is a nice video of the song Muskrat Love, acted out by "Star Wars" characters.

Postcards from the edge

Over Christmas, our family headed to the Riviera Maya, south of Cancun, Mexico. It was a wonderful respite from Winter in Wisconsin. Mexico is an annual vacation destination, and every year, while sitting on the beach, I write Christmas greetings postcards to a handful of friends. Once finished, I drop them off in the mail slot in the hotel lobby and hope for the best. Three months later, they're starting to show up in people's mailboxes!

Some years they arrive within a week or so, some years, never. I've always suspected Mexican Postal workers of steaming the stamps off ($1.05 each, American) and reselling them, tossing the hapless tourista cards in the trash. This year, when the card to ourselves (also a tradition, and a test of the postal system) didn't arrive within a reasonable time (8 weeks) I assumed the worst.

(local Mexican Post Office)

Here's what an un-named multi-national company advises on the "Servicio Postal Mexicano." ...there is an open debate about its effectiveness. No self-respecting business that places much importance on the timely distribution of its correspondence would rely on it for anything other than mass-mailings. Companies tend to have "propios", in-house messengers, for the delivery of important correspondence and paperwork of any kind. Invitations for important functions are also hand delivered, although usually by a specialized delivery company.

Make all the jokes you want about the US Postal Service, but they get the job done. Even with the impending rate increase May 19th to $.41 1st class and $.26 for postcards, it's still a bargain.

What Color is your Ride?

Each year, DuPont Automotive releases its Color Popularity Report, a study analyzing and predicting color trends by model type and world region. In 2006, silver was the most popular color in North America, making up 19 percent of all vehicles. White, gray, black and blue rounded out the top five. My "Bamboo Pearl" (light metalic green) didn't even make the list. My wife's gray ride made the list, along with my parent's blue. My neighbor just bought a new silver SUV. He's always had a silver vehicle.

Colormatters.com has a survey that a car's color tells about the personalities of the people who drive them. Black reflects an aggressive personality and is the color car most likely to be in an accident (no doubt a favorite at the White House.) Silver means someone is cool, calm and slightly aloof. Green indicates hysterical tendencies. (Not sure where my "Bamboo" fits in, maybe mildly hysterical) Yellow reflects idealism, and white is for status-seeking extroverts. Cream is self-contained, controlled and least likely to be in an accident.

Want to know what car colors will be "in?" This article from ADAMM spells it out

Dispenser protection

For my birthday, I received a big bag of the new Dark Chocolate m&ms. Yummy! Mom and Dad also gave me a squirrel-proof bird feeder for the LipsYard. We have a problem with the adorable fuzzy-tailed rats hanging upside down on our tube feeders and hoovering the bird seed. The feeder is from the "Fundamentals" line at Wild Birds Unlimited, and it has a wire cage spring-loaded over the tube, so when a fat squirrel hangs on it, the feeding holes are covered.

In an effort to aid in my weight-loss program, my adoring wife decided to combine the two gifts...
Keeping me from eating them all at once. Boo hoo.
Perhaps we should install something like this in Washington to keep our elected officials away from all the money the lobbyists are dispensing.

Green Thursday: World Water Day

Will you have your 8 glasses of water today, you ARE drinking that much water, aren't you?

Some aren't so lucky. Water scarcity already affects every continent and more than 40 percent of the people on our planet. The situation is being made worse by population growth, urbanization and the increases in domestic and industrial water use by people who live in more
developed areas.

As we take showers, wash our cars, and frolic in waterparks, consider that by 2025, more than 2.8 billion people worldwide will be living in water-stressed countries or regions.

In much of the world, the issue is not so much a lack of water, as gaining access to it. In many cases, it is a question of funding shortages, poor management and governance, unfair distribution and pricing of water, and the lack of political will to change the way in which we use and share water.

What can You do? Actively support governments, non-governmental organizations, private foundations and companies which make it a priority to conserve, recycle and protect water
resources, and deliver affordable water to people at every level of the community. Do your part to use water more efficiently, reduce pollution and protect the environment. Support funding initiatives that help to make these objectives possible. Everyone needs water and everyone needs to take responsibility.

The international observance of World Water Day grew out of the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro. Click HERE to learn more.

Every Green Thursday, LipsYard will deal with an issue vital to our global environment.

Snack Missing in Action

We take so many things for granted in life:

• Stuff in the Miller Park toilets goes into the sanitary sewer


• Which lane to use through the Marquette Interchange project


• There's nothing political about the Justice Department (just ask the White House)


• and Your favorite vending machine snacks

Here at Radio City, the loading dock vending machine choice D-9 has always been Famous Amos chocolate chip cookies. They used to be $0.60, then $0.65, then $0.75, and now they're gone! Replaced by Grandma's Vanilla Creme mini-cookie bites.

They're OK, but for a choco-holic like me, it's no comparison. I want my Amos. I'm never around in the early morning when the vending guy refills the machine, so I can't ask him where they went. The person in our building responsible for the machines has been transferred out of the building, so there's no one to report a missing cookie snack to. Who is this Grandma, and what has she done with Amos?


Every afternoon, when I take a stroll out back for a Diet Coke (if the machine is taking dollars) and a comfort food snack, it hits me like a ton of bricks; No Famous Amos cookies! For now, I'm taking it as a kick in the pants for my weight-loss plan, but when I hit my target weight, I'm expecting my good friend "Amos" back in D-9 for an "all things in moderation" snack.

Spring be Sprung, Eggs be stood on end!

Tonight (March 20, 2007,) at precisely 7:07 P.M. Spring arrives! This is known as the Vernal Equinox. On the equinox, either spring or fall, the sun rises exactly due east and sets exactly due west. These are the only two days of the year this happens. The sun also crosses our daytime sky along the equator of the earth as seen in space. I love the longer daylight hours, and the increase in the sun’s intensity.

This year is also the very last time the equinox will fall on March 21st in our lifetimes. Astronomical events are measured in Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) which is 5 hours ahead of us. With President Bush's advancement of Daylight Saving, time there will not be another spring starting on the 21 in this century. It will be either the 19th or 20th of March for a very long time.

Modern astronomy aside, people have recognized the vernal equinox for thousands of years. There is no shortage of rituals and traditions surrounding the coming of spring. Many early peoples celebrated for the basic reason that their food supplies would soon be restored. The date is significant in Christianity because Easter always falls on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the vernal equinox. It's no coincidence that early Egyptians built the Great Sphinx so that it points directly toward the rising Sun on the day of the vernal equinox.

The egg is one of the most literal and obvious of all fertility symbols, ancient eggish customs survive not only in the form of Easter eggs, but also in the belief that you can stand a raw egg on end during the equinox. This comes from the notion that, due to the sun's equidistant position between the poles of the earth on the first day of spring, special gravitational forces apply.
It can be done (on any day of the year,) with lots of patience (it also helps to secretly shaking the egg, so the yolk breaks, lowering the center of gravity, but that's cheating.)

Spring Cleanup

Sunday was a beautiful day in the mid-40's.Time to bust out the bamboo lawn rake and have at the Winter snow mold and plowing-tossed debris on the front yard.
My arms and shoulders are going to be sore tomorrow!
Ta-Da! Front LipsYard done. (back LipsYard still has snow piles in the shade)
Debris put in the compost bin in the LipsYard garden. Now that the long Republican Congressional Winter is over, there's a little cleaning up going on in Washington.
Congressional Hearings are popping up all over. Iraq, Veterans' Hospitals, that pesky Dick Cheney CIA leak...
The Fired Federal Prosecutors (Karl Rove, it's hammer time) the Federal Communications Commission, heck, we're ready to have a hearing for just about everybody. It's about time.

White Deer on the loose

White White-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus)

My parents have been talking about a 'white deer' roaming through their neighborhood, and we all thought they had been hitting the Mogen David or needed their meds adjusted, but they finally have captured the beast with a camera, and it's real!

In the Arthurian legends, the white hart or white stag is a mystical beast pursued by the Knights of the Round Table.
Sir Sagremor pursues a white hart in Les Merveilles de Rigomer, another is hunted in the Forest of Adventure in Chrétien's Erec and Enid, Floriant chases one to the castle of his foster mother Morgan Le Fay in Floriant et Florete, Percival cuts off the head of a white stag in the Didot Perceval, and Sir Gawain quests afer the white hart in book three of Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur.
It has been conjectured that the White Hart of Arthurian lore may have been drawn from Celtic myths, in which the stag was considered a sacred animal, or may be related to ancient Celtic stag cults known to have existed in early Britain.

Click here if this kind of thing excites you and you want to know more


In doing a Google search on white deer, I was amazed at the bandwidth devoted to these creatures. Here's a site the explains how white deer get to be white deer. It claims that 1 in 30,000 deer are absent of color.

Wisconsin seems to have a perpensity towards white beasts of lore, as shown in this photo of "Miracle" the white Buffalo, born in Janesville in 2006.


White Buffalo (Syncerus Caffer)

Any way you look at it, a white deer is good luck, so we'll take what we can get and leave it at that.

Green Thursday: Oh Poo!

Dye confirms problem with ballpark sewers (from Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)

"At least one sanitary sewer pipe from bathrooms at Miller Park could be misconnected to a storm sewer draining a stadium parking lot, allowing human fecal bacteria to flow into the Menomonee River...Colored dye poured into sinks inside the stadium was observed in a storm sewer about 10:21 a.m. Tuesday, said Peter R. Topczewski, water quality protection manager for the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District. Prior to that time, bathrooms inside a Milwaukee Police Department office in the basement of the stadium and a private suite on an upper level had been tested. By noon, the dye was seen flowing out of a storm sewer pipe that discharges to the river east of the stadium and south of I-94."

If they don't get this fixed by Brewers Opening Day (April 2) it'll mean porta potties at Miller Park.

Aren't there inspectors on these construction projects that sign-off on different stages? Is this my tax money hard at work? We had to have several inspections on our house remodel. Heck, the guy wouldn't even let us move back in because we didn't have locks on the bathroom doors.

You can do some testing yourself, check out this website.

Just pour the color down the toilet and wait for it to show up 'who knows where?' You can also dye test the rain run-off from your gutters.

Every Green Thursday, LipsYard will deal with an issue vital to our global environment.

March Madness

I'm missing the sports gene. Nothing could interest me less than plopping down on the couch for 36 holes of golf, or 2 halves of basketball, or however many innings they play in baseball. NASCAR? It's WWE wrasslin on wheels to me.

I do peruse the front page of the sports section so I can hold my own in cocktail conversation that may turn to sports (but I do need to move to someone else after two sentences.)

March Madness is upon us, and I can't think of another sporting event (it lasts HOW LONG?) that permeates all levels of society, especially in the workplace. "Have you made your picks?" "Do you want in on this pool?" "You put them in the final four?"

The cost to employers in lost productivity could exceed $1.2 billion over the course of the 19-day event, as they circulate pool entries, speculate around the water cooler, and watch games on-demand online. Lord knows how much will be wagered around the world.

Not to be a party pooper, I usually submit my entry fee and willy-nilly selected brackets, only to check back after round one to find out I'm dead last. One year I was beat by a housecat.

A couple of years ago, I tried a new strategy, mascots. Could a Badger beat a Razorback? How about a Blue Devil? My system provided better results than in the past! One time I used the numeric value of the letters in the team's nickname, the higher the better: A = 1, B = 2, C=3 etc BADGERS = 56. Not very accurate.

Rob Amen of the Pittsburg Trib has some other creative choice systems, including:

Graduation rates: Every year, Richard Lapchick of the University of Central Florida compiles the graduation rates of teams competing in the tournament. The schools with the worst rates? Pick 'em.

Party on: Texas tops the Princeton Review's list of best party schools. The Longhorns know how to celebrate, which means they must win a lot. Other notables: WVU, Wisconsin, Florida, Indiana, Arizona and Maryland.

The Big Dance: Wisconsin, Illinois, Iowa and BYU all have solid dance programs. Coincidence? Not likely.

Considering this is LipsYard, I should take the state flower of each team and figure out a way for them to compete. Too much work, and flowers don't fight much.

Perhaps with Greendale's Police chief on a gambling crackdown (remember the small prize bingo bust?) I should just skip the NCAA this year.